RevCheesehead - post your Easter sermon!

[Rabrrrrrr]

Please?

[RevCheesehead]

1. The better of the two was at Sunrise service.

I called it "Woman, Why Are You Weeping?" Taken from the John text, it followed Mary Magdalene during a time of immense grief. I talked about the pain of loss, how the world around you doesn't make sense, and you become more focused on yourself and your pain.

In the text, both the men in the tomb AND Jesus ask her, "woman, why are you weeping?" A stupid question! But I truly believe that men and women grieve differently; and women NEED to cry. We simply cannot function if we don't cry and get it out.

I talked about my Mom's funeral, and how we, as the family, found ourselves comforting those who came to comfort us. How odd, but so often true. We'd say "at least she's no longer in pain," and stuff like that. But during the service, the thing which gave us strength, which kept us going was hearing texts from the Bible which speak of the resurrection. There were still tears, but they were tears of recognition and of joy.

I think that Mary cried AFTER she realized who Jesus was... but they were tears not of sadness, but of joy. (At this point in the sermon, I began to cry real tears of joy)

As Paul wrote, "If Christ had not been risen, then your faith is in vain, and we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ HAS been risen from the dead - the first fruit of those who have died." And he wrote "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Jesus Christ IS risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Sounds like a good sermon - great use of the crying theme

But I am curious about what your ultimate message was in it - that we should cry tears of joy because its Easter? Or because we believe? I'm not seeing the link between the beautiful section on crying and types of crying, and the Paul text.

Perhaps I'm being dense, but it's better for me to ask than for me to assume that I know what you meant.

And thanks for posting it!

[RevCheesehead]

4. Sorry it wasn't clear.

The point was moving from grief to joy. The resurrection is what makes it possible for all of us to make that transition. Death no longer has the final word. In the words of the hymn, "Because he lives, I can face tomorrow; because he lives, all fear is gone..."

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Thank you for clarification

I love the tension of being Christian - at least, of being a legitimate, non-right-wing-racist republican American-Capitalism=Jesus Christian:

I must know joy in the midst of great suffering and despair
because Easter shows this isn't my ultimate destiny;
I must lament the great suffering and despair in the world,
because Easter shows this isn't our ultimate destiny.


But then, I'm a mystic, not a prosperity gospelist.

Now that I know what you meant in your sermon, I wholeheartedly agree - Easter is the hope that helps one through one's pain (or at least, helps me through the pain, and can help lead congregations through their collective and individual pain, and help them help others through theirs and I'm rambling ad nausea and annoying myself so I'll stop here with a full stop, thus.).

[RevCheesehead]

7. You make perfect sense to me.

And, you said it even clearer than I could. Thank you. :pals:

[lavenderdiva]

3. thank you for sharing your outline with us, RevCheesehead-

it sounds like a great theme to build a sermon around.

[RevCheesehead]

8. Thanks, LD.

I was hoping I could still remember it! :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Great sermon

Your congregation is lucky.

[RevCheesehead]

9. Aww, Lydia....

:hug: